Mac mini on a flat screen non HD Ready?? HEEELLLP!!

[firstdingo]

Hi.

I am all new to this forum and i hope i post my question in the right place..

I bought a mac mini and i want to connect it to my keymat non hd ready falt screen.. The tv just says wrong clock and unsupported signal when i try to connect it. My guess is that i must have resulution 640x480 to get it to work (i have connected my i mac this way, and that worked fine), but i have no other screen to adjust the settings. Just have an intel imac, and my flat screen..

Is there some way to boot the mac mini in 640x480??


Sorry for my english.. Norwegian


Please Help..

 

[BlueRevolution]

What kind of cable are you using to connect the Mini to the TV?

 

[firstdingo]

hdmi and vga

I have tryed both hdmi and vga..

 

[Darth.Titan]

Let me get this straight...
Your TV is non-HD and has HDMI?

I'm confused. I'm assuming you've tried trying several resolutions. If the TV has HDMI I can't imagine it would function well at 640x480 as you seem to think.

Somebody throw something at me if I'm wrong...

 

[firstdingo]

hdmi

Well its a keymat 32 plasma. not hd ready. but it has hdmi and rgb and scart and vga. dont know so much about hd, but i want to use the mini for waching movies and spotify.. thats really all. but i cant change the ressulution on the mini, cause i cant get a picture.

i have an imac that is connected to the tv whith a video cable ( the yellow one) and that worls pretty good, but i really wanna get the mini to do the job instead..

i have never logged in on the mini...

 

[velocityg4]

The Mac Mini is likely sending out the wrong refresh rate and resolution. With your normal monitor try changing to 800x600 @60Hz as this works with almost every screen then go from there.

By the way a nice little trick to know when changing resolutions is to use the up and down arrow keys instead of your mouse in System Preferences. That way if you press down arrow and get a black screen you can hit the up arrow to move back to a lower resolution.

The trickier part is if you know the resolution is supported by the screen then you are likely using the wrong refresh rate. Say 75Hz when only 60 is supported.

In this case I found through trial and error on increasing resolution. I would hover the mouse to were I think the refresh rate button will be at a higher resolution (which is usually about 1 1/2 button spaces down from the lower resolution). I then hit the down arrow to increase the resolution. Upon getting a black screen I click the mouse button once to hopefully click the refresh rate button. Then I hit up arrow to a lower refresh rate and then hit Enter to finalize the selection. If you missed your guess on the button position you will now find you are at the lower resolution again or that thousands of colors has been selected.

I found this trick out when switching out monitors that had incompatible refresh rates. Maybe someone knows how to reset the monitor preferences. Since it seems that if say an old monitor was used at 1280x1024@75Hz OS X assumes the new uses the same Hz at that resolution rather that resetting to 60Hz.

Let me get this straight...
Your TV is non-HD and has HDMI?

I'm confused. I'm assuming you've tried trying several resolutions. If the TV has HDMI I can't imagine it would function well at 640x480 as you seem to think.

Somebody throw something at me if I'm wrong...

I assume this refers to the TV requiring an HD cable box or other source for HD input like a computer or Playstation 3. Rather than just being able to plug in an antennae to receive over the air HD television.

 

[firstdingo]

thanks for all the answers.. but my real problem is that i have no other monitor.. so i cant log into the mini. i have actually never logged into it. so the main question is is there a way to start it with another ressolution? or do i have to get a monitor?? or can i log into it with a fire wire from my imac and do something? it really sucks to get a cool little box lile this and dont get it to work..

 

[firstdingo]

I did it!!

I did it..

I took my mini to work and logged in. I changed the display to 640* 480 and selected ( i am glad i did) a shortcut for the ressolution in the top bar. Because when i got home it was wrong!!! So i tryed to find the right spot for the toolbar with my mouse, and hit to arrowkeys down to choose 800*600.. After 15 min i did it!!!! And it works just great.. Mac mini with front row is perfect for the living room.. podcasts, music, movies, etc...

Thanks for all the answers..

 

[takao]

I found this trick out when switching out monitors that had incompatible refresh rates. Maybe someone knows how to reset the monitor preferences.

well you can try to delete

/user/library/preferences/byhost/com.apple.preference.displays.xyz.plist


(and if that isn't enough:
/user/library/preferences/byhost/com.apple.windowserver.xyz.plist
/library/preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
/library/preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist

learned that the same way with my mac mini)

 

[velocityg4]

well you can try to delete

/user/library/preferences/byhost/com.apple.preference.displays.xyz.plist


(and if that isn't enough:
/user/library/preferences/byhost/com.apple.windowserver.xyz.plist
/library/preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
/library/preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist

learned that the same way with my mac mini)

That is good to know.

I assumed the op had an old monitor. Anyways if you get the black screen on a new display. Boot into safe mode and usually get a working screen. Then go ahead and change the resolution to say 800x600@60Hz.

Afterwards boot normally at the new resolution and make changes from there.